The use of the windings of a step motor to both drive the motor and to provide the position determining feedback pulses is known in the prior art. In each of the prior art systems, however, the feedback signals from the motor windings must be subjected to complex processing which increases the cost of the system. Such complex processing was required because whenever current is induced in a winding which is used as a sense winding, voltage drops due to this induced current are additive with the open circuit EMF induced by the permanent magnet of the motor. Thus the voltage drops due to the induced currents must be reconstructed and subtracted from the winding signal in order to detect the EMF induced by the permanent magnet of the motor.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,282,471 teaches using a reconstructed locked rotor response as the reference signal, which has the effect of subtracting it from the winding signal.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,234,838 uses a similar method on a variable reluctance motor.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,065,708 teaches a summing amplifier 6 for subtracting the output of amplifier 2 which simulates the voltage drop due to current.
A major drawback of these methods is the requirement of matching gain coefficients in the reconstruction circuitry with parameters of the motor. Another drawback is that some of these methods involve differentiation which is sensitive to noise and is subject to drift.
When reconstructing a voltage drop due to an induced current, the inductance and the resistance of the winding enter into the reconstruction calculations. In particular, the winding resistance varies with temperature, introducing a phase error in the detected signal. Although the inductance of the windings of a permanent magnet step motor are often assumed to be constant, in actual fact there often is at least some variation as a function of the angle of the rotor, and some variation as a function of the temperature of the magnetic circuit of the motor. This variation is borne out by the observations of B. C. Kuo and K. Butts as discussed in the Test Results section III of their paper entitled "Closed Loop Control of a 3.6 Degree Floppy Disc Drive PM Motor by Back EMF Sensing" published May 1982 in the Proceedings, Eleventh Annual Symposium on Incremental Motion Control Systems and Devices.
Another prior attempt at separating the induced EMF from the voltage drops due to induced currents is discussed by Toshiro Higuchi in his paper entitled "Closed Loop Control of PM Step Motors by Sensing Back EMF" which was also published in May 1982 in the above Proceedings.
Mr. Higuchi added special sense coils to the motor and used external transformers to cancel the induced voltage drop component in the sense coils. The drawbacks of this method are increased motor cost and the requirement for tuning the external transformer to match the winding inductance of the motor.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,693 shows another complex method of compensating for the voltage drops due to current. This patent drives the windings of a permanent magnet step motor with a pulse width modulated H driver which regulates the winding current to a predetermined waveform. Because the EMF induced by the permanent magnet of the motor affects the current, the pulse width modulator continually compensates by varying the pulse widths. A filter and phase shifter are used to detect these varying pulse widths which are then used as the indirect equivalent of the EMF induced by the permanent magnet.